New Linux

I've gotten spoiled by Ubuntu.  I think it's a great desktop OS (if you're into Linux).  I was recently using Fedora 11 as a Desktop at home (off of a bootable USBish device).  It's okay - I prefer it for server apps that are designed for Fedora.  I also loaded CentOS in a zone on  Solaris.  It's okay too.  Still - Ubuntu makes a lot of things too easy to pass up.  I've got Karmic Koala at home.  It's fine.  Can't see any difference between that and the 9.04 (whatever fuzzy animal that was named after - Feisty Fawn?)

Anyway, this guy was beating it up.  His reasons seem silly.  He's probably just trying to get some hits on his web site.

But I ran across this: Hadn't seen Lubuntu before (but noticed Knoppix's been using that desktop for a while). (I'm on Linux-Mag's mailing list since I *had* to see the answer to a forum there the other day).

So anyway, lot's of fanfare about Karmic this week.  This guy mentions ArchLinux as an easier alternative to Gentoo.  I wondered if anyone had tried it.  Then I remembered we had this mailing
list... but it bounced.  Maybe we don't have a mailing list anymore...

Beautiful Weekend Brings Out Bees

It got up over 70 today and was sunny and windy. That brought the girls out in force with not much to do (November being a low nectar time). So I refilled the sugar water - TWICE! And, I'm fairly certain it's empty again. I'll do the same tomorrow. I really should make that winter top cover they demo'd in Bee Culture last month. Could make feeding a lot less trouble (although I got away with feeding without the gear this morning).

First Astronomy Post Since 2005!

I stopped logging my astronomy sessions a few years back. It was was such a beautiful dark sky when I got home at 7pm I couldn't resist setting up the scope. My criteria for a dark sky was met: I could detect Andromeda with the naked eye! NOt bad for an object 2,500,000 light years away (well, of course, it IS an entire galaxy)! Even better - I nailed it on the first try! Got it in thr view finder and had it centered in the scope!! Next I looked at Pleiades. Meh. No nebular cloudiness so - kinda boring tonight. I was able to split the binary star in Cynus with low power. I've never done that before. Jupiter was not too interesting either. Even with a dark green filter I had to use my imagination to see one equatorial band. I detected and viewed a large open cluster down and to the left of Cygnus. I don't remember that that was. Tried to view the Ring Nebula in Vega with low power to no avail. I think there was a lot of moisture in the sky and the horizons in every direction were washed out with light. It didn't used to be that bad out here. The city folk moving out here are scared of the dark and leave lots of flood lights on. Ever since they paved the road it's gotten worse! :-)